I’ll Meet You There (25 page)

“And she can move in any direction?” I asked, prolonging my inevitable loss. I didn’t
want him to go home and leave me to wrestle my demons alone.

“Right,” he said. “She’s your nuclear bomb.”

“Uh-huh.”

Whichever way I went, he’d be saying “checkmate” within a few moves. My finger hovered
above a rook, then a knight. Undecided, I sighed and pushed forward a pawn he’d be
able to capture in his next move.

“You okay?” he asked. He put his hand on my knee, for just a second. If I’d been a
different Skylar, I’d have put my hand over his.

The pact. The pact.

“Sorry,” I said, busying my hands with remaking my ponytail. “Just … stuff’s on my
mind. It’s fine.”

Everything I was doing was like this chess game—full of second guesses, indecision,
waiting.

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” I said.

“Fair enough.” He looked at where I’d moved my pawn, then sat back, studying the board.
“Hmmm.”

“Just kill me and get it over with.”

“You’re not so good at the patience thing.”

“And you are?”

“Oh, yeah. In the military, it’s all hurry up and wait.” He leaned over the board.
“Hearts and minds,” he murmured. “Hearts and minds.”

“Huh?”

“Just this thing they told us overseas. How we were there to win the hearts and minds
of the Afghanis. Every day, some commander would say it. Or you’d see it on this sign
above the entrance to our camp.”

“Are you good at it?” I asked.

“Winning hearts and minds?”

I nodded.

“Don’t really know…” He looked up at me, his eyes mischievous. “Yet.”

I stopped breathing, and he made his move, a blatant murder of one of my rooks.

“Damn. I forgot about him.”

“Gotta watch your troops.” He leaned back and popped a strawberry into his mouth,
stem and all.

“Dude. You’re not supposed to eat the green part.”

He shrugged. “Nutrients. Trust me, once you’ve eaten camel balls, you’ll eat anything.”

“
Eww
. Seriously?”

He laughed. “No, but you totally believed me, didn’t you?”

“Jarhead.”

“Yep.”

“Okay, stop distracting me,” I said. “I’m trying to annihilate you.”

“Good luck with that.”

“You know, I’m only pretending to suck at this. I’m letting you win.”

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

“I have to pay for your mechanic services
some
way.”

As promised, Blake had sent the tow truck out to pick up my car. A few days later,
it’d been sitting in the Paradise lot good as new. Josh had not only fixed the radiator,
which had been the last straw for the Prizm, he’d also managed to replace or mend
several other things. And he wouldn’t let me give him a dime.

“Oh, that,” he said. “I just put it on your tab.”

“I have a tab?”

“Uh-huh. We’ll discuss payment at a later date, but I’m thinking homemade chocolate
chip cookies, back rubs, that sort of thing.”

“Do I look like the kind of girl who makes chocolate chip cookies and gives out free
back rubs?”

He held up a finger. “Not free.”

“Well, I don’t bake. Especially not for boys.”

“What about men?”

I shook my head, blushing. “I have the distinct feeling you’re trying to rile me up
so I’ll make a dumb move and hand you this game on a silver platter. True or false?”

“I plead the Fifth.”

“Of course you do.” I couldn’t look at him, not when he smiled at me like that, so
I stared at the board, chewing my lip.

Josh cleared his throat. “So, uh. There’s this thing tonight. Down by the creek. Just
a couple of people, a bonfire. You should check it out.”

“Check it out? Like it’s an art exhibit or something?”

He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. It’d be good for you to … have fun.”

“I have fun.”

He gave me a look like,
Sure you do.
“Well, anyway. I’ll be there. If you get bored, call me and I’ll come pick you up.”

Was he asking me out? I always thought he’d be direct about that kind of thing. The
old Josh Mitchell would have grunted, cavemanlike:
You. Me. Creek. Sex.
Or something.

“Thanks. I’ll think about it.”

I wished I could call Dylan to make sense of it. My heart felt like it was running
a marathon—God, could he hear it? I looked up after I made my move, and he smiled
at me before turning his attention back to the board.

“You’re getting better at this. It’s taking me longer to massacre you, anyway.” He
grimaced as he took my pawn. “Rookie mistake. You could have moved your knight here—”
He pointed to a square on the side of the board. “Or you could have—”

A sudden crack pierced the air, a car backfiring on the highway, and Josh froze. Then
he stood up, his sudden movement causing the chessboard to topple over and the pieces
to scatter. He stood still for a minute that seemed to go on forever. Then he let
out a long breath, shook his head a little.

“Fuck,” he muttered. He took a few steps toward the pool, his back to me.

I stood up slowly, walking on eggshells. “Josh?”

He didn’t turn around, just stared out at the pool with his hands on his hips.

“Hey,” I said. I stood in front of him and reached for one of his hands. When our
skin made contact, he gripped my fingers, and I shifted closer, careful not to move
too suddenly. He looked past me, like there was a slow-motion car crash happening
over my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

I shook my head. “Nothing to be sorry about.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple pushing in, then his arms went around me. He smelled
like baked bread, the way skin does when it’s been out in the sun, and I bunched his
T-shirt up in my fists as I held him to me. After a couple minutes, he let go and
looked down at the chess pieces scattered all over the patio.

“Shit.”

He started to lean down, but I held up my hand. “I’ll get them.”

“I can do it.”

“Josh—”

“Sky. I’ve got it, okay?” he snapped.

I nodded and stepped back. “Okay. I’ll just … I’m gonna grab a Coke. Do you want anything?”

“No.”

I walked toward the glass door, my eyes smarting as he struggled to reach down for
the pieces. I prayed none had fallen into the pool. Knowing him, he’d rip off his
leg and dive in after them. I pulled the glass door open with trembling hands.

“Hey, sweet pea.” Marge was standing just inside the lobby, her hands tucked into
the pockets of one of her tropical-island-themed muumuus. From the look on her face,
I could tell she’d been watching the whole thing.

“Hey. He’s just—”

“You don’t need to explain to me, hon.”

I pretended not to notice the long look she was giving me, but when I started to walk
past her, she gently grabbed hold of my arm. I had the sudden urge to lean into her
thick body and sob, but I just cocked my head to the side and waited.

“You okay?”

I nodded, but my chest felt tight, and nothing, nothing, nothing was making sense
anymore.

She frowned. “Just be careful. I’m glad he has you, but you have to look out for yourself,
too. You get what I’m saying?”

If only she knew how much he’d been taking on for me. What was I doing for him? Nothing.
It wasn’t like I could go into Josh’s brain and alter his memories. Take the war away.
Give him his leg back. I’d never felt so powerless in my life.

“Yeah. Totally. Um. I’m gonna…”

I pointed to the front door and walked out, then ducked around the side of the motel,
to the orchard surrounding it. I lay on the grass and closed my eyes, collaging against
my eyelids. The Golden Gate Bridge. Josh in uniform. My trailer. The angel from the
Paradise sign. Strawberries.

I didn’t get up until I heard Josh’s truck start, then peel out of the driveway.

JOSH

Marge comes up to me and hands me a cold beer before I leave the Paradise for the
day, which is cool of her since she probably knows I just made a total ass of myself.
I put your chessboard in my bag, and we sit there for a while, just watching the sun
set. Don’t know where Sky went, and I’m scared I screwed everything up. I’m starting
to realize that she’s my only real friend in the world right now. I can’t lose that.
I’ve tried so hard to play it safe with her, and I thought I was doing okay until
I went all wounded warrior on her and …
fuck.
Marge says,
Josh
, and I say,
Hmmm?
and she says,
Sky is like a daughter to me, you know that
. And I say,
Yeah
. Then she says,
Be careful with her. She’s a tough cookie, but you could hurt her real bad
. And I say,
I would never hurt her
, and I really mean it because this feeling I have for her—man, it’s like absolutely
nothing I’ve felt before, which is freaking my shit out, and Marge goes,
She’s a good girl
, and I say,
Yeah, I know
. And then she’s all,
What does your therapist say about her?
and I have to admit that I haven’t talked to him about Sky and she says,
Well, maybe you should
, and I get that what she’s really saying is
This isn’t such a good idea, you have one leg and your mental evals from the Corps
were shit, weren’t they?
And I want to tell her I don’t give two fucks what anybody thinks, but that’s not
true so I just say,
Yeah, I hear you, Marge
. She gives me a little hug and says,
I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, the two of you. I’m just saying to be careful is
all, sweet pea.
And after she leaves, I start thinking about the wives and girlfriends. When I was
at Walter Reed and later in the Wounded Warrior Regiment, they’d come and try to help
their men, you know, and the dudes would be telling me how hard it is for the relationship
and shit, and I start thinking about Sky, like, if this becomes something—which it
probably won’t because I’m too much of a pussy to make a move (I know, can you believe
it?)—I’m just thinking about what I’m asking of her. If we get together. I’d be asking
her to, like, deal with my shit. Like what happened today. She doesn’t need that in
her life; she has enough problems. And I start picturing her trying to help me do
stuff because I can’t man up or whatever, and everything turns dark and wrong, and
I’m back in that shitty place I was in when I first woke up and saw how the hospital
sheet lay flat against the bed when there should have been a leg under it. I need
your help. I need you here with a six-pack and your goddamn wisdom. This is your territory.
What am I supposed to do when I’m bad for the one good thing in my life?

JOSH

You know, I don’t even need you to answer that, bro. Marge is right. I gotta back
off.

chapter twenty-three

My fingers moved over the piles of paper on my bed, like brushes in a can of rainbow
paint. I’d spent the past hour tearing up the colors I needed for the next installment
of my collage for Marge. Didn’t matter that it probably wasn’t a going-away gift anymore.
I still wanted to finish it. I had about half of it done: the highway snaking through
the whole piece, the creek, the strawberry fields. I’d decided to begin working on
the orchard behind the Paradise, so I was going through the old magazines from the
lobby, tearing out all the brown and green. My hands were sticky with glue, and I
hummed along to Sia, playing in the background. I loved taking these pieces and making
them part of a whole, giving them a place to belong. More beautiful than when they
started.

I pieced together a trunk, branches, leaves. With this collage, I could remake Creek
View, transform it into something beautiful and clean. Under my hands, it breathed
with new life.

I forced my mind to stay on the collage, giving every bit of my awareness to it. I
wanted to pretend for a few hours that it was still May and Mom was fine and I was
going to San Francisco and Josh Mitchell was only the memory of a kiss on a cheek.
I found my groove and stayed there. It was warm, wombish and a little melancholy,
but in a good way. The making pulsed through me, like someone was guiding my hands
over the paper.

I didn’t hear the knock on my door at first. But soon the tentative taps became purposeful
rapping.

“Just a sec!” I called.

I ran into the bathroom and rinsed the glue off my hands. When I opened the door,
Dylan was standing there, wearing a miniskirt, a skin-tight tank top, and platform
sandals.

“You’re getting together with Josh Mitchell tonight,” was the first thing she said
to me. “I’ve decided it’s the only way to save your shitty summer—you need a hot fling
with that sexy one-legged boy. Sex is the ultimate de-stresser.”

I looked down at my baggy pajama pants and oversized T-shirt. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, I do.”

Dylan swept past me, and I caught a glimpse of Amy at the reception desk before I
shut the door behind me.

I turned off my music and gestured to a chair. “You want to sit?”

Dylan plopped down and crossed her legs. I didn’t know what to say after our fight
that afternoon. How did you apologize for years of belittling someone? We sat there
looking at each other until the silence became unbearable.

“The collage is looking pretty good. The strawberries look real,” she said.

“Thanks. I used this metallic red paper I found in an old book.”

“Cool.”

The seconds ticked by, and the silence was so silent it turned into a high-pitched
whine. I grabbed an M&M’s ad and started tearing the brown parts out. I set the paper
back down and finally looked her in the eye.

“Dyl … I’m sorry. I honestly don’t know what else I can say. I love you, and I think
you’re an amazing person, and I’ve been an asshole.”

“Okay.”

“That’s it?”